Obama’s Trayvon Speech Shows He’s No Different Than Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton

Jul 22, 2013

RUSH: I want to take you back to me on this program, March 24th, 2008. This was during the presidential campaign year. Obama had not yet won the Democratic presidential nomination. This was during Operation Chaos, where this program was doing everything it could to keep Hillary Clinton’s hopes alive and to keep the Democrat primary race interesting to the audience of this program. Obama was then a senator, a United States senator from Illinois. I proffered an opinion for you, the audience of this program.

RUSH ARCHIVE: He represents the same damn stuff as Jesse Jackson. There’s no difference. I’m convinced of it now: There’s no difference in Obama and Al Sharpton; there’s no difference in Obama and Jesse Jackson. It’s just Obama had a much better mask than those guys. Those guys were argumentative and challenging, and Obama was pleasing and contrite and so forth.

RUSH: So that’s 2008, just to set up what comes next, that Obama and Jackson and Sharpton have the same objective, same mind-set, same cultural references, same views of America. I believed it then, and I know it now. So Friday afternoon in Washington, the daily press briefing, Obama shows up — without a teleprompter, by the way, and the Drive-Bys which you’ll hear in a moment were ecstatic. The Drive-Bys were beside themselves with happiness and joy and glee because Obama came out and actually sounded coherent without a prompter. There’s a reason for that, by the way. Here’s the first of two sound bites we have from the president…

OBAMA: When Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping at a department store. That includes me. There are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me, at least before I was a senator.

RUSH: Okay. So that happened on Friday afternoon when I was in a sauna, called a golf course, in Connecticut, and I had no idea it had taken place. So Friday night as part of this weekend tournament festival, there is a heavy hors d’oeuvres and cocktail party at the club. I showed up with my hosts, and started making the rounds and talking to people, and somebody in a group… It was a very famous lawyer. I will not tell you who because I always assure people that what they say to me, unless they say otherwise, is confidential.

But you’d know the name of this lawyer. I don’t know who the woman was. It might have been his wife, might have been his girlfriend, but, anyway, he told me what Obama had said, and I’m looking at him and my mouth is wide open in disbelief, and I say, “He said what?” And then it was repeated for me, and then a woman… This is very interesting — to me, anyway, as one who studies life or lives life by observing it.

The woman said, “Yeah, and, you know, he had a point. It could have been Obama 34 years ago.” Folks, I came close to losing it. I realized I was a guest, and I dialed it back somewhat. I said, “Yeah, but it didn’t.” What is all of this could’ve, would’ve, might’ve, it didn’t happen to him. What happened to Trayvon Martin did not happen to him, probably because everyone did what Trayvon Martin did. It didn’t happen to Obama.

This is a blatant attempt. It’s exactly what Dr. Shelby Steele is talking about. Why are these people so invested in Trayvon Martin? Here’s the president talking about how this could have been him 34 years ago. It could be him tonight if he’s in Chicago. If he’s a kid in Chicago today, it could have been him. What is this “Trayvon Martin could have been me 34 years ago”? It is countless black kids today, except the perps are not George Zimmerman.

So why this investment in Trayvon Martin?

Dr. Steele has it exactly right. It is to perpetuate the myth within the black community that all blacks remain helpless victims of white supremacy, white racism — when George Zimmerman isn’t a Caucasian to begin with, and there was no white racism involved here. If anything (and Rachel Jeantel let the cat out of the bag), this was homophobia. Trayvon Martin… You notice people still haven’t gone there?

You notice that that aspect of what she told Piers Morgan still has not been picked up? At least I haven’t seen it. Now, this coulda happened over the weekend and I didn’t see it, but Trayvon thought that he was being pursued by a gay predator and took actions to stop that right there, here and now. That’s why I played the clip for you of me from 2008 saying that Obama is no different than Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, and with this comment… Making a point to go to the White House pressroom, pointing out it could have been him 35 years ago?

I don’t know. That’s the kind of… I just think that’s utterly irresponsible. It is certainly not healing. It’s not even emotionally honest. But it is exactly who I’ve always thought Obama is.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

We start Wichita. This is Tom. Thank you for waiting, sir. As always, great to have you on the program.

CALLER: Good morning.

RUSH: Hi.

CALLER: You stole some of my thunder this morning. I was going to talk about how he walked to the podium without a teleprompter and showed us his true feelings again and who he represents.

RUSH: You mean Obama on Friday?

CALLER: That’s correct.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: He had everything to say about Trayvon but he had nothing to say to his parents, to George Zimmerman, or George Zimmerman’s family or anybody else.

RUSH: Well, it could have been him 35 years ago, or some such bunk.

CALLER: Well —

RUSH: The problem is it wasn’t him 35 years ago. It didn’t happen to him 35 years ago.

CALLER: That’s correct.

RUSH: Where was he 35 years ago? In Burma?

CALLER: No.

RUSH: Indonesia?

CALLER: He was in Hawaii with his grandparents having a very good time. So that was my main point.

RUSH: I tell you what. I didn’t mean to steal your venom. I usually call it “thunder,” but if you want to characterize it as (chuckles) venom, go ahead.

CALLER: Boy, he was stirred up. I mean, he stomped in there and it’s like, you know, when he was speaking very candidly with Joe the Plumber, the same thing came out. His true colors come out. “I’m with you groups, you elite groups. I’m a member of you guys and everything else can just fly it.”

RUSH: Let’s go, Mike, to audio sound bite number six, a media montage. I spoke of it earlier how excited the media was over this.

WOLF BLITZER: It wasn’t an Oval Office address looking into the camera, reading from the teleprompter.

GLORIA BORGER: …not using a teleprompter like we very often see this president.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: (b-roll noise) No teleprompter, few notes.

BROOKE BALDWIN: Not using a teleprompter!

LUKE RUSSERT: There was not a teleprompter!

MICHAEL SMERCONISH: There was no teleprompter!

SUSAN HENDRICKS: Without a teleprompter, by the way.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Unscripted, no teleprompter.

WENDELL GOLER: (outdoor noise) He spoke without notes or a teleprompter.

ATHENA JONES: (outdoor noise) Very few notes. No teleprompter.

KRISTEN WELKER: (b-roll noise) It was extemporaneous. No teleprompter.

MARK SHIELDS: He did it without a teleprompter!

ERIN BURNETT: He did so in a 17-minute speech, and he did it without a teleprompter!

RUSH: Wow! Wow! They are shocked! Five-and-a-half years into his presidency, Obama gave his first speech without a teleprompter. They were so impressed, and we all know why. See, you didn’t need the prompter for this because he was gonna be entirely totally open. Every other speech is scripted so that Obama doesn’t reveal who he really is. That’s the reason for the prompter is to keep the mask and camouflage on.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let’s go back audio sound bites here.

This is Tavis Smiley. Tavis Smiley was on Meet the Depressed on Sunday during the roundtable. They were having a discussion about Obama’s remarks about the Trayvon Martin case, and David Gregory said, “Tavis Smiley, you were critical of the president. You said on Twitter his comments were ‘as weak as presweetened Kool-Aid.’ He took too long to show up and express outrage.”

SMILEY: This town has been spinning a story that’s not altogether true. He did not walk to the podium for an impromptu address to the nation. He was pushed to that podium. A week of protest outside the White House, pressure building on him inside the White House pushed him to that podium. The bottom line is this is not Libya. This is America. On this issue you cannot “lead from behind.” What’s lacking in this moment is moral leadership. The country is begging for it. They’re craving it.

RUSH: Now, I don’t know. Maybe Tavis here is critiquing the media, and he may have a point there. They went into immediate spin mode after that speech and started talking about, “Well, this is the greatest speech Obama’s ever given! Why, it was so good, he even went out there and gave it without the teleprompter! Oh, man. Oh, man. This guy is as good as we’ve always thought.”

Tavis was saying (paraphrased), “Wait a minute. There was nothing genuine about this. This town’s spinning a story about Obama’s speech that it doesn’t deserve.” Now here is David Brooks. David Brooks of the New York Times was also part of the roundtable on Meet the Depressed. David Brooks once had dinner with Obama. It was the first time. There have been many subsequent occasions, too, but this is the man who thought — because of the crease in Obama’s slacks — that he was destined to be a great president.

We did not make that up. David Brooks actually wrote that as well as said it. The crease in his slacks so impressed David Brooks… What do you have to be looking at to see that, by the way? When is the last time…? Dawn, when’s the last time you noticed the crease in a guy’s slacks?

(interruption)

Brian, how about you?

(interruption)

Snerdley?

(interruption)

Me either. The crease in somebody’s slacks? The last time I cared about the crease in anything was Major League Baseball uniforms when I was a kid and wanted my Little League uniform to look just like theirs. That’s the last time I cared about creases. Brooks couldn’t help but notice it. So on Meet the Press, David Gregory said, “David Maraniss, who wrote a biography of the president, writes this morning that once the president had reached the White House, quote, ‘It appeared that his intense interest in the subject of race diminished.

“‘He would be judged by the content of his presidency not the color of his skin. Race seemingly became unimportant if not irrelevant to the first black president of the United States.'” You know, I think this is an interesting point. This is David Gregory quoting David Maraniss in a piece that ran Sunday, and I think this is how Obama had everybody fooled. Remember Obama was portrayed as this post-racial president, post-partisan president.

Everything was gonna vanish!

There wasn’t gonna be any more racism. There wasn’t gonna be any more partisanship. There wasn’t gonna be any more bickering. There was gonna be total unity! I think tehse guys all swallowed that Kool-Aid, that “presweetened Kool-Aid.” They all swallowed it. They all drank it. They all had this image of what Obama was, and they made him fit into it — whatever the truth was — and they really believed that Obama didn’t care about race once he became president.

When anybody paying attention would know that’s the primary thing that animated him. It’s the primary thing that informed him, the primary source of his grievance. Obama is grievance politics, and the primary reason for that grievance is race. It’s in everything that he’s done. It’s in every policy. It’s in almost every speech. That and unions, victimization, minorities. They’ve been screwed by the majority for time immemorial.

It’s all there.

Now, these guys say Obama, when he became president, he forgot all about that. They wanted Brooks’ opinion on that.

BROOKS: It’s important to remember race is his first subject, as it would be if you had a — a black father and a white mother. And all the mental habits he brings to all the other issues, grow out of the way he framed race and the way he started thinking about race. I thought this speech was one of the highlights of the presidency. I thought it was a symphony of indignation, professionalism, executive responsibility, personal feeling. It had all these different things woven together, I thought beeeeautifully. But it’s important to remember, race is how he thinks.

RUSH: Man, oh, man. I just marvel. There are people inside Washington who, when Brooks said that, “Oh, man, I wish I had the ability to write that way! Oh, I wish I had the ability to speak that way! Oh, wow, is that not good?” Never mind that it’s full of it. “I thought the speech was one of the highlights of the presidency.” “Thirty-five years ago, I could have been Trayvon.” “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon Martin.” “Oh, that speech is one of the highlights of the presidency! I thought it was a symphony of indignation, professionalism, executive responsibility, personal feeling.”

A symphony.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Rob in Charlotte, North Carolina. Great to have you on the program. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. I am very upset — well, I’m upset about a lot of things that Obama said on Friday, but in particular it really upset me when he said that had the races of the two participants been reversed, that is, had Martin been white and Zimmerman been black, that the outcome at every step along the way might have been different. And I’m an attorney, and I’ve practiced criminal law for several years, and it is really upsetting. I don’t see anything like that in our criminal justice system, especially on a case like this where the evidence that the prosecution had was so sketchy. I mean, I cannot imagine a jury convicting this guy. The only thing that really might have been different is that Zimmerman never would have been charged had he been black. But had he been charged and had he gone to trial with this kind of evidence, there is no doubt that the jury would not have convicted him.

RUSH: Okay. I just want to make sure I understand what it is that you’re upset about. Obama said that if the circumstances were reversed, that —

CALLER: He’s saying that our judicial system is inherently racist, and, you know, for the president of the United States to come out and say that is… I mean, it’s inflammatory.

RUSH: It is. Okay, let’s stick with that, then. I know it’s frustrating and it makes you angry. Does it surprise you? It shouldn’t, is my point, it shouldn’t. Obama is all about creating chaos and upsetting the order of things. He’s all about stirring the pot, and generally involving things that have to do with race. I think what Obama said is classic. It was entirely unsurprising and furthermore expected that he would go out and say something like this. He’s gotta keep his constituency happy. He’s gotta keep his base happy. He’s got the civil rights coalition breathing down his back ’cause he hasn’t acted mad enough about this. So he goes out there and he reads the script. He says something just like Jesse Jackson would say or something just like Al Sharpton would say, and who cares whether it is corrupting the judicial system. Obama thinks it already is. I’m not disagreeing with you. Don’t misinterpret the tone of my voice. But your point is, are you saying that in your experience blacks do get a fair shake in the justice system?

CALLER: Yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, individuals are always gonna have their own prejudices. But in general, generally speaking, when you have evidence, especially when you have evidence that’s so one-sided, I just cannot imagine a circumstance under which race would have mattered, the race of Zimmerman would have mattered —

RUSH: But, you see, Rob, that’s another great point. Here we had another circumstance where the nature of the evidence was irrelevant. The nature of the evidence is not what mattered. The charge was what mattered. And in the world of liberals, the charge is reality. The evidence is reality. The evidence, if it doesn’t go your way, is supposed to be doctored, manipulated, lied about, shaped or formed so it means something other than what it really means. The charge is what counts. The charge is the truth.

It’s like the presidential race in 2004, Rob. The exit polls, the first two waves of exit polls had John Kerry way, way ahead, winning the presidency. Then the real votes started being counted after the first two waves-of-exit polls. And it turned out the exit polls were wrong. Liberals immediately said the exit polls are what’s right and challenged the real vote on the basis that that’s where the fraud had to be. The real votes, the real votes didn’t count. The fake exit polling is what was real. Same thing here. The nature of the charge. And the charge: racism. And that’s what they were upset about, pure and simple. They didn’t get their way.